Woodside’s Senegal project on track for first oil despite delay with subsea installation campaign

Australian energy giant Woodside has completed more than half of the work related to the first phase of its Sangomar project in Senegal, the country’s first offshore oil development, staying on target for the first oil next year. A subsea part of the work is lagging, but the arrival of the second rig remains on schedule.

The Australian company is now working on the Sangomar field Development Phase 1, which will consist of a stand-alone FPSO with a production capacity of approximately 100,000 barrels per day, 23 subsea wells, and supporting subsea infrastructure. This phase of the development will target approximately 230 million barrels of crude oil. The project was sanctioned in January 2020.

In its quarterly update released on Tuesday, Woodside revealed that the subsea equipment fabrication for the Sangomar project continues to progress and equipment continues to be delivered to Senegal. The pre-lay survey of the Sangomar field began in January, ahead of the commencement of the subsea installation campaign, which was previously scheduled for 2Q 2022 and has now been pushed back to 3Q 2022.

The subsea scope of work was awarded to Subsea Integration Alliance, a partnership between Subsea 7 and Schlumberger’s OneSubsea, in January 2020. It covers the engineering, procurement, construction, transportation and installation of the SURF system and associated subsea production systems (SPS). Subsea 7 will use its reel-lay, flex-lay, and light construction vessels to execute the project.

In addition, the UK’s Bureau Technical Services will be supporting Subsea 7 with quality assurance and quality control services (QA/QC) for the deepwater project.

Furthermore, the conversion activities for the FPSO Léopold Sédar Senghor continued during the first quarter of the year despite the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The FPSO will be supplied by Japan’s MODEC, who will also be in charge of its operations and maintenance, while the Chinese shipyard Cosco is in charge of the conversion work.

The shipyard started converting a very large crude carrier (VLCC) into an FPSO for the Sangomar project over a year ago. Now, the second and last drydock activity scope is complete, based on the update from Woodside. The conversion work is expected to take about two years.

Other shipyards in China will also be used to complete the work necessary for the vessel’s conversion to an FPSO and Woodside workers will be working in four yards.

UK’s oilfield services provider Wood will also work on the project, implementing a combined production management system and virtual metering system at the Sangomar FPSO control room and Woodside’s onshore offices in Senegal and Perth. This follows from Wood’s ongoing work with Woodside executing the flow assurance design analysis for the FPSO.

Woodside also revealed that the development drilling programme for the Sangomar project is progressing as planned and the second drillship, Diamond Offshore’s Ocean BlackHawk, remains on schedule to start drilling in mid-2022.

Diamond’s fleet status report shows that the 2014-built drillship is scheduled to start its contract with Woodside in June 2022, following the completion of a contract with Oxy, and end in 2Q 2023.

As previously reported, the 23-well drilling campaign for the first phase of the Sangomar field development started in July 2021 and the first development well was drilled and completed, including the installation of the xmas tree, in September 2021.

This was the first horizontal production well to be drilled in Senegal. It was drilled using the Diamond Offshore-owned Ocean BlackRhino drillship. The rig’s contract with Woodside is scheduled to end in 1Q 2024.

Based on Woodside’s update, the Sangomar Field Development Phase 1 was 56 per cent complete at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 48 per cent completion at the end of 4Q of 2021, and compared to 38 per cent at the end of 3Q 2021. The project remains on track for the targeted first oil in 2023.

Woodside has also received confirmation from the Government of Senegal that a two-year exploration period extension has been granted for the PSC area covering SNE North-Spica.